AAPLOG is happy to provide a new resource, developed by the adoption agency Lifeline Children’s Services, for physicians and hospitals interested in offering the best care possible to pregnant women who are considering making an adoption plan for their child. The toolkit, titled “Adoption Best Practices for OB-GYNs and Hospitals,” offers a primer on how best to counsel patients on adoption and support them as they consider making this decision.
The toolkit includes sections on:
- Understanding adoption, including the difference between foster care and voluntary adoption;
- Presenting adoption as an option, including important considerations for understanding your patient’s potentially complex pregnancy situation and examples of empowering language to use and disempowering language to avoid;
- Caring for patients who are making adoption plans, including prenatal, labor and delivery, and postpartum care, as well as what to do if CPS is involved;
- Creating a birth plan;
- Making an adoption referral, including potential vetting criteria for adoption professionals and agencies;
- And additional resources.
Available alongside this toolkit is a standard operating procedure (SOP) template that hospitals can adapt to establish their standard practices when serving patients who are considering adoption.
“It is vital for medical professionals to have a basic understanding of modern voluntary adoption and to have an adoption professional they can contact on behalf of their patients,” said Christie Mac Segars, LICSW, Vice President of Domestic Services at Lifeline. “A patient may be considering abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis, may be considering adoption shortly before or after birth, or may be expressing concern over parenting or their child going into the foster care system. All of these and others are great opportunities to present adoption and connect them to an adoption professional.”
Ms. Segars added, “Additionally, our teams need to know how to care well for moms who are making adoption plans. This resource includes tips for you, including sample birth plans and same hospital adoption policies for you to utilize.”
Dr. Lisa Gilbert, a family physician and recent AAPLOG Board Member, said that having the tools to offer quality adoption counseling “is so crucial for us as women’s health professionals. Many women with unexpected pregnancies are never presented with all their options.”
“This toolkit contains the best practices in discussing the option of adoption, such as using positive language about adoption, addressing misconceptions and biases, helping interested women create a birth plan, assisting women finding ethical adoption agencies, legal considerations, and more,” Dr. Gilbert added. “Every professional who cares for reproductive-aged women will find this material helpful.”
We are honored to be able to work with Lifeline to offer this support to members and other physicians and hospitals as they strive to provide life-affirming healthcare to women who are pregnant in difficult circumstances.
You can access the toolkit here. The adoption SOP is available here.
